As Box continued to mature as a company, the firm fought through the ups and downs of being a highly visible hyper-growth Silicon Valley firm. Box struggled to get its IPO completed, having to deal simultaneously with a volatile stock market and increased scrutiny of its SaaS business model. In parallel, the company worked to aggressively expand its business into large enterprises through a key partnership with IBM, all while working to grow its top line, keep costs in line with targets and retain top talent.

CEO Aaron Levie co-founded Box as a student at USC in 2004. Less than 10 years later, Box had become one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in Silicon Valley, serving more than 180,000 businesses including marquee customers such as Procter and Gamble, Panasonic, and Avaya. Despite this success, Levie was concerned about the future. He and his leadership team would need to overcome significant hurdles to turn Box into one of the next great enterprise software companies. This case explores how Levie planned to evolve Box from online storage to a data platform in the cloud. It follows the company's attempt to shift from collaborative sharing of information to becoming a platform for accessing critical data. Issues covered include: managing competitive threats from large, well-funded companies such as Microsoft and Citrix, delivering enterprise-class solutions with consumer-grade ease-of-use, and maintaining Box's distinctive and fun culture as the company grew and added more disciplined business processes.